


Elegance walking arm in arm with a lie

by cher



Category: Velvet Goldmine
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-25
Updated: 2014-12-25
Packaged: 2018-03-03 09:19:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 679
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2845892
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cher/pseuds/cher
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Brian Slade glitters.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Elegance walking arm in arm with a lie

**Author's Note:**

  * For [corialis](https://archiveofourown.org/users/corialis/gifts).



It's the main thing Curt remembers about those glowing, drunk-blissed days. The glitter. Everything shone and sparkled and nothing hurt. Even when it did hurt, the pain glinted gold and silver, and it was still mesmerising, as if Curt could observe his own hurt and still find beauty inside it. 

He loved the shine of it all, the way glitter would show up everywhere; all over him in the shower though he could swear there'd been none near him in days; at the grocery store; falling out of his wallet when he went for his ID. His life with Brian shone for that short time, and despite everything after, it's the way Brian and the glitter made him smile that Curt remembers. 

*

There's no escaping the glitter. That shit is everywhere, always. It's in their bed, in their wine - they don't know how or why. It's in their clothes and their hair and it's always stuck to their skin. Brian is a captivating creature and he knows it, and he wears the glitter as if it were bestowed on him by a grateful world, his own shining raiment. 

Curt loves him for it - loves him for everything. It's as if the air itself shines around Brian. Curt can hardly believe the way he can want Brian like a drug, the way he makes even the desire for the needle seem far away and paltry. Brian's eyes are full of tricks and mystery, and Curt is willingly under his spell. 

He knows that Brian is not forever, that the magic and the sparkle can't last. These stolen days of sex and joy are snatched from a world that doesn't shine in the slightest, and one day Brian will go back there. His magic is the cruel sort, the kind that bestows riches and joy for fleeting moments. When the moment is over, Brian will be gone, and Curt will have nothing but these memories of golden days and sweat-slick nights. He's at peace with it. And he thinks, because sometimes Curt can just _know_ things in a way he's never been able to explain, that one day far into the future when Brian's magic passes to someone new, Brian may come back to him. 

For now, the world is theirs. They shine and the world watches them, captivated. Curt and Brian together weave a magic all their own, and the world loves them, hates them, imitates them. It's what Curt has looked for, and did not think to find with the most beautiful man in the world by his side.

Brian shines. He's out to conquer the world. Curt doesn't want to own the world; he just wants it to love him and hate him for a moment. It will be enough for him, when that moment fades away, to know that he was seen. He doesn't think he'll be understood, but that's not important. Just that he be seen, Curt Wild, and that he touches a few souls while he does it. He learned long ago that he can't control what people make of him, or what they'll feel about what he does. He can only be himself, as loudly and completely as he can manage. 

Brian is almost never himself. He's a creature of artifice and glamour, shifting and changing from one moment to the next. But then, Curt heard once - recently - that a man is most himself when he wears a mask. Maybe the peculiar magic of Brian makes his masks and glitter and distractions real. 

So they steal away together, flesh to flesh, leather and gold shining glitter and sweet, sweet wine. It's the most glory Curt will ever touch and he holds it to his heart like a fleeting sunset, a phenomenon that will never come again in quite the same way. The camera flashes, the bedcovers, the open windows and the utter joy in one another, and above all the music. Always the music. The music, and the way Brian's eyes are beautiful, and cruel, and for the moment, fixed entirely on Curt Wild.


End file.
